Navigate:

President Obama goes on the offense for liberalism

In his speech, Obama sought to tie liberalism to a long American tradition.

What’s so remarkable about Obama citing “Stonewall” or “our gay brothers and sisters” — unthinkable in an inaugural speech a decade or two ago — is that for much of the country such references are thoroughly unremarkable. That’s simply where the country is now, and Obama, a biracial president with an African name, is as much emblematic of the shift as he is the engine. Putting the fight for gay equality or liberalized immigration laws in the tradition of the previous rights obtained by the country’s forefathers isn’t all that jarring to the ear in the year 2013.

Unlike his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, who with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat just a few feet away from the president, Obama doesn’t have to govern defensively when it comes to the culture wars. Many of the baby boomer wars have been settled and — on culture at least — the left is in ascent and it’s Republicans who are now grappling with how to reconcile the conservative views of their base on issues like gay marriage and amnesty for illegal immigrants with demographic realities.

Text Size

-

+

reset

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat in his second term representing a red state, is more moderate than Obama, but even he offered something of a shrug when asked about the social liberalism the president embraced.

“Clearly you’re seeing movement [on those issues], especially among younger folks,” Nixon said after the speech. “I mean on many of these types of things they’re quite frankly ready for us to move forward in this country in a lot of ways.”

To Republicans, though, Obama’s embrace of the left’s goals was something of a confession — now guaranteed a second term, the president who once sounded so many conciliatory notes is revealing his true impulses.

“I congratulate President Obama on his inauguration and hope we can find common ground with him, especially on our spending problem, but the president today made no pretense: He’s the liberal his past so clearly articulated, and he’s going to push that agenda,” said Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.).

As Obama and his team know, cultural liberalism comes relatively cheap. It doesn’t cost a dime from the federal treasury to support gay marriage or push to restrict the use of assault weapons. And Obama’s unambiguous pledge to take up the cause on those issues wasn’t matched with a similar vow for a new era of bold progressivism on economics.

For all his not-very-veiled shots at a Paul Ryan-style worldview on entitlements and “takers,” Obama has no large programs in his second-term agenda to grow the government to expand economic justice.

It may be that Obama and his aides have concluded — because of a Republican-controlled House, soaring deficits or both — that they’ll have an easier time cementing a legacy in the second term on cultural change than on the sort of big new programs they created or funded in his first term such as health care reform and the stimulus.